Twice now in the past few months, I’ve gone to Ashfield intending to eat at New Shanghai only to be deterred by the queues and have ended up at Taste of Shanghai instead. Now I am sure that I will just keep coming back to Taste of Shanghai – the food is fresh, packs a punch of flavour, and the service is decent enough.
The xiao long bao dumplings (soup dumplings) are just phenomenal. I personally think they are better than the ones at Din Tai Fung. They come out steaming hot so you’ve really got to be careful not to burn yourself with the soup inside. The pork filling is also melt-in-your-mouth soft.
I have also been pleasantly surprised by the quality of the non dumpling dishes at Taste of Shanghai. This time we had the seafood vermicelli hot pot – at first when it came out, I was disappointed as the seafood (prawns and scallops) was tiny and didn’t look particularly fresh. But as soon as I tasted the dish, I knew it didn’t matter because it was just so incredibly full of flavour. The noodles and cabbage had absorbed the beautiful sweet saltiness from the seafood.
Finally, we had the crispy duck with Chinese wraps, which weren’t really wraps but rather the open white baos. The duck was crispy but not greasy though a little too dry and definitely inferior to the typical Chinese roast duck. I was also a little annoyed that they charge for the wraps separately to the duck – 6 baos for $5 is a tad on the exxy side. But then I just went back to eating more of the seafood hot pot and my night remained just as enjoyable.
Details: Taste of Shanghai, 264 Liverpool Rd, Ashfield NSW 2131
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